Standard in a formal description, is a tournament format containing several recent Magic: The Gathering sets. Most sets enter the format when released and drop out about twenty-one months later. In a few weeks or this coming September, we will bid goodbye to some MTG sets that are next scheduled to rotate out of the format.

In effect, some of the notable card components that are seen play beforehand will now become a main-deck component thus the demand for usability will then increase. I have identified some that are regular deck components and also those that are seldomly added as sideboard cards.

Here below is the unboxing video of my recent online purchases of the single card components for Standard. Enjoy and don’t forget to click like and subscribe to my channel DeathMarked TV.

The inevitable rotation of the Standard format will be on this coming October 4th wherein it is the same date that Throne of Eldraine will be legal to play. After two years of enjoyment in gameplay, we say goodbye to the sets Ixalan, Rivals of Ixalan, Dominaria and Magic 2019. While the first two sets personally did not made a mark in my Standard format game experience, I would really miss the nostalgia feels of the Dominaria set. Being the first plane as the setting of the first Magic sets, it became part of my growth as a Magic: the Gathering player in its storylines, characters and card abilities.

There is one interesting and quite funny poem I found in Reddit and I’d glad to share it below.

The Wreckage is Settled, Azcanta’s been found,

The dinos extinct and the Legends Cast Down.

The Tempest diminished, the Storm has been Tamed,

And Benalia’s Historians Marshalled away.

Those Bound in Ixalan are finally free,

but the Sun’s not Immortal, and neither is Squee.

Exploring’s grown boring, and with unfavorable Winds,

The Legions are Landing, their Journey must End.

Source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/d9kdyj/goodbye_ixalan_dominaria/

Welcoming Throne of Eldraine in the newest look of Standard, we have the following legal sets: Guilds of Ravnica, Ravnica Allegiance, War of the Spark, Coreset 2020 and Throne of Eldraine. I am pretty sure we are all excited to try all of these decklists floating around in various websites that the Pro players have brewed.

Of course in building the decks, we all must have the budget and money to at least preorder those valuable card components. This method is probably the easiest way of deck completion while buying sealed products such as booster boxes is another way of completing most of the cards but only in one or two copies.

The local community is almost ready to play and also excited as well. The two Prerelease events will be tonight and tomorrow for the first-hand experience of the lore and gameplay of Throne of Eldraine.

I do not expect our decks to be completed right away with no preorders posted, but eventually we will once the start of the Standard grind commences.

It is not that really obvious that I am a fan of the Vampires deck as that tribe has given me my first Professional point in GP Singapore way back in 2011. I was happy to see them as a tribe and deck archetype in Ixalan, and even created possible builds. The printing of Goblin Chainwhirler, however, has completely blocked most of the 1-toughness creatures of this deck. Hence, it was forced to lie low in the Standard metagame in the past few months.

On this coming Guilds of Ravnica, I was hoping for the deck’s comeback even with Orzhov still to be released in January 2019 and so I have came up with the possible deck build with only utilizing the Ixalan and Rivals of Ixalan cards in the creatures and spells lineup.

Here it is below.

Creatures
1 Bishop of Binding
4 Forerunner of the Legion
3 Dusk Legion Zealot
2 Duskborne Skymarcher
1 Bishop of the Bloodstained
3 Adanto Vanguard
3 Champion of Dusk
3 Mavren Fein, Dusk Apostle
4 Legion Lieutenant

Spells
3 Legion’s Landing/Adanto, the First Fort
4 Radiant Destiny
3 Vraska’s Contempt
4 Call to the Feast

Total Non-land Cards: 38
Lands: 22

They would still probably use the dual land Isolated Chapel and the tribal Unclaimed Territory for mana fixing. I have yet to wait for Godless Shrine in January so I might set aside this deck for now. Given if Dimir will have some Vampires in their guild, I might consider splashing Blue to access their colors. We will see once the full Guilds of Ravnica spoiler is out.

That is a wrap. Until the next blog post.

I have recently dropped by a discussion thread in the FB group MTG Tambayan about the upcoming Standard rotation wherein the question was “Which cards should you invest on once the rotation happens?”. The sets from Kaladesh up to Hour of Devastation will be out of Standard this coming October 2018.

There were various suggestions commented like on the Planeswalkers, Walking Ballista, and the likes that are playable in Modern or older formats. What I suggested though is the players should invest in the dual-color producing lands, specifically the Kaladesh Fast lands. They may look mediocre but basing on the history of Magic, investing in lands is never a bad thing. I have learned my lesson at the time of Scars of Mirrodin wherein we only kept a playtest of each of the allied-colors fast land. The extras were sold to a mere 150 to 200 pesos each, which was the actual price at that time. Today, each is reaching almost 4 digits because of its use in Modern.

Kaladesh enemy-color fast lands will most likely face the same fate in the coming years. While we might have extras in our card pool, I might want to keep a personal playset on Blooming Marsh, Spirebluff Canal, and Concealed Courtyard. I might check its current price in the market this week and probably start buying by the second week of September. That may coincide with the GP Hong Kong trip so I can also check with the sellers there.

You might want to do a research for other cards that has Modern or Legacy potential if given the time to detail which cards can affect which decks.

To conclude, lands are good long-term investments and that is about it.